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Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath?

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Re: Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath?

#81

Post by hdhriek »

lukifer wrote: post #65
jerf wrote: post #4

"Homo economicus, is a creature of coldly calculated selfishness, dispassionately maximizing its best interests even if that comes at the expense of others." For the second time today, I get to point out that in economics is neutral about "best interests" and is metaphorically happy to accommodate people whom consider happiness or other such "soft" things as part of their personal value function. If your definition o…

Homo Economicus might be fictional, but Corpo Economicus and Beaureau Econonomicus are not. Whenever individuals must make decisions on behalf of organizations (public or private), they must be able to justify their actions in the rational, sometimes psychopathic, terms of their institution (to make legible decisions, to use Venkatesh Rao's terminology). Though economics is value-neutral when it comes to what individ…

Exactly. And where you have a society dominated by entities acting entirely in their self interest you are likely to get instability. Society formed through the complex interplay between selfishness and altruism. An individual in the evolutionary sense is not merely contained within the physical body he inhabits, but is spread among a group of people who share, in part, the genes that describe him. As such the individuals within a genetically related grouping behave at times in a manner beneficial to the common good. This allows the machinations of society to grow in complexity over time. It allows more optimal configurations in the phase space of society to be sought out. Without this interdependence between actors, you fall foul of extreme short termism. We have pure rational self interest on a pedestal and ignored the altruism component for various historical reasons. We find ourselves in a dynamic which is destructive to the pursuit of globally optimal configurations of society.

Re: Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath?

#82

Post by eli_gottlieb »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #39
joshjkim wrote: post #19

This reminds of a thought I had a few months ago: how have there not been more thought pieces relating Uber-the-business's recent/relentless PR-debacles to Nietzsche's Ubermensch concept? I guess I'll give it a go. Uber/Travis and his execs seem to demonstrate the belief that they are "overmen" in that they seem to believe that they transcend the rules of society and are destined to shape society and its values rathe…

> Note on Nietzche: In Thus Spake Zarathrusa, the "uberman" concept is (maybe) considered a positive that humanity should work towards in the absence of belief in God, and I think it can still be understood as such. The problem is that, in the absence of God, there is no absolute morality that is not the result of an arbitrary choice. When the "uberman" arises, he/she creates a new morality, which is needed in the mo…

>The problem is that, in the absence of God, there is no absolute morality that is not the result of an arbitrary choice.

Simply wrong. Morality is either absolute, in which case it binds God Himself in the first place, or it is meaningless, unworthy of being called morality, mere signaling.

Of course, I'm a stark-raving realist on the matter, but it really depends how you define the word. It's only my preference to be realist about everything, to define my words so that they point at things whose existence does not depend on the words.

Re: Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath?

#83

Post by eli_gottlieb »

joshjkim wrote: post #69
jqm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when have the gods actually spoken? Seems likely what we really have in the words of the gods is simply a collection of more uberman psychopathy. Which leads us right back to the inevitability of lack of absolutes. Maybe we would be better off dealing with this as is?

Without getting too cheesy: I think the gods have spoken through the apparently "irrational" existence of (sorry for the cheesiness!) love, which I define as the the active valuing of other life as more valuable than or at least equal in value to your own. While this is a form of selflessness, I actually think this works in conjunction with the basic belief that human beings are ultimately self-interested, because I…

Just because the whole "Power of Love" and "Power of Friendship" tropes actually work doesn't mean that an ontologically fundamental conscious agent reached into the physical universe and rejiggered bits to make it go that way. It mostly just means that your average "rational" human being is a lot less rational than he thinks he is, because he can't see powerful psychological and sociological forces even when they're at work in and around him.

>This is of course assuming that being happy, satisfied, connected and self-realized are in fact, things that are good and that people want

Unfortunately, we have a society that largely encourages people to want hierarchical domination, when what's actually good for them is all that stuff you said.

Re: Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath?

#85

Post by notahacker »

nickff wrote: post #55
clairity wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

economists (particularly of the capitalist variety) certainly have a point of view that the economic utility function can be directly transformed into and represented by monetary value. literally the point of the utility function is to represent behavioral preferences with a number, which can then be calculated on. by turning decisions into math, this transformation has the effect of shielding rational actors from th…

> "economists (particularly of the capitalist variety) certainly have a point of view that the economic utility function can be directly transformed into and represented by monetary value" Which economists have that point of view? Some have accused Smith of this, but it is plainly untrue, as made clear in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments".[1] Austrian economists such as Mises (who few would call socialist) criticized…

The idea that an individual optimizes their trades to maximise utility relative to their initial allocation of resources - and that monetary values in the price system itself therefore reflects an aggregate of human attempts to maximise their utility through trade and production - is so orthodox in economics it doesn't need lists of supporters.

von Mises is unusual in expressing the view that human utility cannot meaningfully be known and understood except through preferences expressed by [economic] action but that's merely a stronger version of the same principle that the price system is a way of linking people's preferences [purely ordinal, in von Mises' case] with a [symbolically cardinal] monetary value.

Re: Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath?

#86

Post by kelseyfrancis »

crpatino wrote: post #48
kelseyfrancis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taking care of an ailing parent is in no way connected to maximizing one's returns on anything (except maybe fulfilling a sense of what you "ought" to do). Unless that act teaches your own children how to treat you later in life.

I know it is a semantics argument, but there's a difference between "X ends up acting in alignment with self interest" and "X's actions are motivated/guided by self interest".

Motives aren't really relevant here. Reciprocation or replication by others does happen, regardless of motive, so caring for family and friends (or strangers for that matter) is very much in one's self interest. I took issue only with the idea that it's not.

Re: Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath?

#87

Post by orbifold »

ruskerdax wrote: post #29
Umn55 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is the Marxists that want you to believe the psychopath claim, in their desire to stereotype capitalism as blind greed." Oh but they have more then abundant evidence that capitalism was brought into being by war an conquest, not because it's some law of nature. http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/jferguson-1039684-c... Albert einstein: "The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically,…

Marxists have all the evidence that Capitalism is brought into being by war and conquest, standing in stark contrast to every peaceful Marxist revolution that ended with such great results. If only Capitalists were as enlightened as Einstein, the highly regarded economist and anthropologist, who identified Capitalists as some primitive, predatory animal, we could finally evolve to see the socialist society of the fut…

The American population has been indoctrinated so thoroughly with regard to socialism and communism that beyond a small minority it seems pointless to discuss the subject with them. The mainstream political discourse is so far right to that of Europe even among young people that it's not even funny.

Re: Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath?

#88

Post by BradFinkle »

The terrifying thing about this analysis, if we presume as the author does that it is correct and could be applied to society, is that this small percentage of our society ("the prototypical member of the social and economic elite") holds the power that creates the logic by which most of us must act within. Even if we have more altruistic and communitarian values, our life is not a neutral experiment whereby we can demonstrate these values. The logic of our social sphere seems to hinder the expression of communitarian values even for those of us whom are naturally inclined this way. For me this article exemplifies that which we worry about most - that the logic of Homo Economicus which we can be seen to adhere to is championed by those who run the game rather than those playing it.

Re: Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath?

#89

Post by yourapostasy »

raarts wrote: post #77
yourapostasy wrote: post #6

Following Betteridge's Law of Headlines, the answer the article answers is "no", but it is a qualified "no". Homo Economicus according to the article "is a creature of coldly calculated selfishness, dispassionately maximizing its best interests even if that comes at the expense of others". The researchers concluded: "We see a person who is intelligent, driven to excel and to dominate other people, and capable of impu…

Can you point to some other studies? This is an interesting topic.

You will get a deluge by Googling "sociopathy leaders" and "psychopathy leaders". Most are unfortunately not as quantified as I prefer (and I'm not aware of any longitudinal studies at all), but personally I've experienced enough anecdata corroborating the studies to appropriately take action in my daily life. The exceptions in the business world especially are so rare that they prove the rule. The interesting questions to me, that haven't really been explored as far as I can find, come out of asking why as a species we have evolved to generally enshrine this group as leadership.

Re: Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath?

#90

Post by jlarocco »

DanDanDanDan wrote: post #33
jerf wrote: post #4

"Homo economicus, is a creature of coldly calculated selfishness, dispassionately maximizing its best interests even if that comes at the expense of others." For the second time today, I get to point out that in economics is neutral about "best interests" and is metaphorically happy to accommodate people whom consider happiness or other such "soft" things as part of their personal value function. If your definition o…

Most people do not take care of their family because they think it's in their best interests. They often take care of their family for myriad reasons--e.g. a moral call to selflessness, sociocultural norms, a sense of familial duty, love, etc. The language of "best interests" really doesn't fit here. Taking care of an ailing parent is in no way connected to maximizing one's returns on anything (except maybe fulfillin…

> Most people do not take care of their family because they think it's in their best interests. They often take care of their family for myriad reasons--e.g. a moral call to selflessness, sociocultural norms, a sense of familial duty, love, etc. The language of "best interests" really doesn't fit here.

I disagree, and would almost go so far as to say making other excuses, like following a "moral call to selflessness" or following "sociocultural norms" is more sociopathic.

I value my family, so I'd take care of them if they needed it. No other reason than I value them being around.

Breaking it down and saying, "I need to make it look like I follow sociocultural norms, so I'm going to do this, just to fit in," seems more sociopathic, IMO.

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